Stephanie's Pillowbook

I know, I know – this is the typical lazy bloggers’ fall-back. I will write some new posts soon. Promise.

In the meantime: ridiculous searches which have brought people to this site. I’m always astonished at how bizarre so many of them are. But I have to confess they do rather irritate me – because it makes me feel like the majority of visitors alight here by chance and then click away within seconds as there is nothing to satisfy their ill-conceived search enquiries.

• there are the rushing waves mountains of molecules
• munch on satin panty box
• desmond morris roadmap to sex
• beautiful hungarian man
• what does the phrase “full on” mean
• stephanie hates circular logic
• latex hobble skirts
• portraits of dying women dada
• lauren bacall engagement ring
• book mutant traitress
• stefanie reptile transgender
• wordpress hedonism thigh
• ludicrous t-girl youtube
• sophisticated elegant naked ladies silk
• fotos childer ianomami
• advertiser newspapers talk about panda’s face in food by aaron macdonald
• as the barriers in the head get broken down, the noise buff becomes a kind of hip vegetable.
• crossdresser sitting and tapping heels
• kate fox irony loft conversions
• how many myths are their about the alphabet
• sequinned nipples
• dying from affixation definition
• you like the phrase. “i respect that”

I don’t want to recycle too much more material from the old Pillowbook but this – my apologia, if you like, for blogging – needs to be here, I think.

There are two common criticisms of blogs in general that get trotted out at every opportunity and neither of them, I believe, is worth a damn. The first identifies blogging as some kind of inferior short-cut journalism; as though every blogger spends their time responding immediately to current affairs. It sometimes appears that the only time blogs get mentioned in the press is when an amateur blogger circulates on the internet a photograph or bit of gossip hours before the professional print journalists are able to publish. It’s as though the latter see blogging merely as a kind of limited, speeded-up version of what they do. Even the most highly-praised blogs seem to be those that follow the established journalistic pattern: every post is derived from a news story or media snippet taken from another website or feed and dished up with a suitably quirky, smart comment. Also journalistic is the annoying 3-column layout favoured by many in imitation, I suppose, of a newspaper. It’s all very mainstream and unexciting and in a lot of cases deserving of condescension.

I once received an email about the Pillowbook damning it with the faint praise: it’s better than expected even if not “Guardian’s features level”. Grrrrr. Well, I’m sure my critic meant to be kind. It’s not pleasant, though, to be criticised for failing at something you’re not even attempting. Now, if I were writing a feature article for The Guardian or something of that kind, I would be mindful that I was addressing the public, I would choose my subject with care (or have it chosen for me), undertake any necessary research, generalise from my experience, draw conclusions, and revise and polish what I wrote until it was fit for publication. I could expect, too, to be judged as a writer on a single, self-contained piece of work which, at the same time, is related to the other articles and serves a (transitory) purpose in a particular medium. My writing, too, would have to conform to a certain house-style and promote a world-view not entirely of my own making. And, ultimately, it would have to contribute to the selling of the newspaper.

However, I’m writing a blog. It’s not published work for the world at large – it’s a cross between an intimate diary, a personal scrapbook and a volume of essays that I choose to share with (potential) friends. It’s a dump for passing thoughts, links, quotations, musings on this and that, current obsessions, interests and annoyances, all the bits and pieces of my life that can be quickly put into words and pictures. I please myself – and hope to please others in the same way. Blogging is more improvisatory and conversational, tentative and speculative, opinionated and provocative than other forms of writing. Also, it should be remembered, a single post is not representative or definitive – it’s the whole blog which is the work (although, of course, one which is unfinished and unending).

This site, I suspect, is more likely to fall foul of the second criticism which is that blogging is merely self-indulgence, an exercise in vanity and frivolity. Rubbish! I really do not understand the charge that writing a blog is the last refuge of the self-absorbed, a parade of self-advertisement and narcissism that displays an excessive concern with the petty and trivial details of everyday life. Well, real life, for most of us most of the time, is not the grand events that take place on the world stage but the endless conversation around the kitchen table. Why shouldn’t we be concerned with that? For a start, it is only by paying attention to the succession of small things, the things close to hand, that happiness is gained.

Why do we enjoy gossip so much? Why do we read biographies? Why do we pore over diaries? Why do we subscribe to blogs? Surely it is because we are all fascinated by the minutiae of other people’s lives, because we are desperate to know how everyone else gets through life? We want to identify the similarities and ponder the differences. But then comes the cry: “What makes you think anyone is interested in you?” The obvious rejoinder is that we are interested in each other. We are social beings, we seek to connect with our fellows. And in order to really connect it is necessary to share some intimacy. Indeed, generally speaking, when anyone makes a too hasty accusation of egotism one can often be assured that the true problem is that people are in fact not egotistic enough. So with blogs – the great fault with many of them is not that their authors are self-obsessed. On the contrary, what makes them frequently tedious is that they don’t in fact say enough. Nothing gets revealed. There is no sense of a live person with all their peculiarities behind the writing. Given the freedom to say anything people too often revert to clichés, to set forms and stock phrases. It is not subject matter which makes good literature. As usual it is the way things are done which is important. Don’t worry that you talk about yourself – just be entertaining about it. Tell the truth in a colourful or stylish or interesting way and I’m convinced someone will listen.

After all, when we are dead and buried what will bring us back to remembrance are the thousand quirks and habits which go to make up our individuality. If we are loved, these are the things which make us lovable. And writing a blog is, in a large sense, an appeal for love.

First posted in September 2006

I was rather proud a couple of years ago to receive the following message from EOR at Second Sight:

I’ve tagged you as a Thinking Blogger. If you’re interested in carrying on the meme (which is slightly different from other memes since we know where it started) there are three requirements:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the
post that you wrote.

I did, at the time, link to five other blogs that made me think but as none of them actually “accepted” I won’t bother reprinting the list – and the meme is rather too old to come up with another five.

First posted in March 2007

At one time I was rather obsessed by my blog stats but now the number of visits has fallen from a daily average of several hundred to around 3 the whole subject is rather less interesting. Anyway, the sheer perversity of some of the search strings which have led people to my pillowbook has always baffled and distracted me. So, here are a few of the more bizarre:

• Sentimental tripe – that’s come up twice! At least I know somebody’s actually reading this stuff, then…
• Late upper palaeolithic tools – er….um…?
• What are these characters in? harmony, rhapsody, symphony, melody -I know, I know. Captain Scarlet. Glad to be of help.
• Big fish called stephanie – somebody out there is looking for a slap.
• “Lipstick conspiracy” - it’s ok, I’m not in on it. But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?
• I am cutting the credit card up – now Google is giving out advice. I know I should…. but I can’t.
• Coming out the room game – I don’t think that sounds like much fun. I’m staying right where I am.
• What is gastric flu – I’d ask a doctor if I was you. I wouldn’t go to a blog like this for the answer.
• Vista glowing buttons – humph, we don’t like Vista round here.
• getting kissed under mistletoe – you’re out of luck. It never happens to me (sigh).
• “tears and moonlight” – ah, my life in a nutshell.
• Daily routine work conversation – doesn’t really sound worth searching for, does it? And I would hope you don’t find it here.
• who distributes tin foil? – The Union of Tin Foil Distributors, I believe.
• shells roses furttenbach – I suspect this does mean something – just not to me.
• coulomb’s buts – No idea.
• rainbow plucking orgy download – sounds like fun.
• has anyone ever put a boys hair in updo? – I’m sure they have.
• how to get photos of a future myself – I do know the answer to this one but I’m not telling.
• astrologers in blean – Blean’s not very big, you know. I wouldn’t have thought there were many.
• madonna “solve differential equations” – I bet she can’t, not even ordinary ones.
• i have man breasts and like to wear a bra does that make me gay? – Yes. Yes it does.
• what is old age? – You don’t want to know, I promise you, you don’t want to know.
• vegetable delicacies that grow on romney marsh - I thought it was famous for sheep.
• facial paralyses in dogs – Eh?
• magical alluring “hard to get” – I suspect this is someone I was chatting to once online trying to track me down!
• my lower stomach always rumbles – Too many late night kebabs, I’ll bet. But what do I know.

First posted in December 2006 & April 2007

I originally started a blog called Stephanie’s Pillowbook back in December 2005. The title refers, of course, to the famous Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. Shonagon was a Lady-in-Waiting to the Empress in tenth-century Japan who recorded her tastes and thoughts and impressions of life in a series of beautifully-written notebooks. As she writes: “I set about filling the notebooks with odd facts, stories from the past, and all sorts of other things, often including the most trivial material. On the whole I concentrated on things and people that I found charming and splendid; my notes are also full of poems and observations on trees and plants, birds and insects.” She was also quick to point out what she disliked and found hateful, and the book contains much witty and malicious gossip.

Naturally I never had a chance of emulating that aristocratic and aesthetic lady but I borrowed the term ‘pillow book’ (which in any case was common enough in her day for a set of occasional writings) for my own use. My intention had been to mix up the trivial and the serious in my life and interests; to move between the past and the present; to have lots of lists of likes and dislikes. I wanted to make something rich and miscellaneous and uncategorisable out of it all. Not surprisingly I was too lazy to achieve much of that and I never did half of what I could have done.

Unfortunately as 2007 wore on I became more and more involved in frustrating arguments with trolls – in the end I could take no more. By early last year (2008) I felt the Pillowbook had become stale and bogged down with trivialities. At the same time my life changed dramatically when I moved to London. So far as the Pillowbook was concerned I had little energy for it. Also I became somewhat uneasy about revealing so much about my past life. Anyway, I shut down the blog in April – restarted almost immediately – and shut it down again at the end of September. At the beginning of this year (2009) I restored a few old posts at this new address and then forgot about it.

Well, now is the time to bring back the Pillowbook, I feel. My enthusiasm has been restored and I have a whole bunch of stuff waiting to be written up. The focus of the new posts will be on music but I am going to deal with other topics as well. In the meantime I shall bring back a substantial part of the old Pillowbook – some posts unchanged, some with minor corrections, some extensively revised, some (on the same theme) concatenated to form longer posts. The approximate date of first posting will be marked at the end of each revived post.

This is a personal blog and not a public forum and as such I reserve the right not to admit comments that are offensive, abusive, idiotic or irrelevant. So I have, as before, enabled Comment Moderation. I don’t reveal my email address here – so one good point about comment moderation is that if anyone wishes to send me a private message they need only use a comment and mark it “not for publication”.

Finally, a brief introduction. I am a woman of a certain age living in London. I have a PhD in Philosophy with a strong interest in the history of ideas. And music is my love and passion in life.